Harbor Town Confidential

A fortune built on drowned ships. A marriage built on a lie. A town that would rather bury the truth than let it surface.Welcome to Sable Harbor, Massachusetts - a proud New England port where the granite mansions on the hill were paid for by the sea, and not always honestly. In this collection of ten interlocking tales of fraud, passion, and high-society scandal, an insurance underwriter discovers that the "lost" ships he insured never sank at all. A bride vanishes from her own engagement gala. A trial that promises to expose the harbor's oldest families instead closes ranks around them. And through every story moves the shadow of an unsolved night on the water that no one - not the widow, not the detective, not the church - has ever fully explained.Written in the atmospheric tradition of classic true-crime storytelling, Harbor Town Confidential is a wholly original work of fiction: no real persons, ships, companies, or events are depicted. Sable Harbor and everyone in it exist only on these pages.What's inside:¿ Ten connected stories spanning three decades of one town's secrets¿ Marine insurance fraud, forged manifests, and a scheme that outlives its schemer¿ A high-society engagement, a scandal, and a trial the whole town attends¿ Recurring characters, a shared timeline, and a slow-building mystery that pays off by the final chapter¿ A fictional New England setting rendered in rich, era-appropriate detail - no illustrations needed, the prose does the work¿ Front matter with a clear fiction disclaimer, plus reading-group material for book clubsPerfect for readers of atmospheric historical fiction, fans of Gilded Age scandal and early-1900s crime drama, and anyone who loves a slow-burn small-town mystery with a large cast of unforgettable, flawed characters. It also makes a distinctive gift for the reader on your list who has already worked through the true-crime shelf and wants something just as gripping - and entirely made up.Step onto the docks of Sable Harbor. The tide is going out, and it's taking the town's secrets with it.